Turpin, replying to him in a friendly manner, and at the same time gradually retreating into the cave, slyly seized his carbine, and shot him in the stomach.
He then fled from the Forest, and was reported, by the London Daily Post of May 12th, to have been very nearly captured in the small hours of the morning of the 11th by three peace-officers, who, late the night before, received information that he proposed to sleep at a certain house near Wellclose Square. Three men accordingly beset the house, but they were observed by a woman on the look-out, and Turpin, hurriedly aroused, fled through the roof, and over the chimneypots of the adjoining houses.
It will be observed by these various newspaper paragraphs and scattered notices, that Turpin was always changing his associates, and it is obvious that the stories which would have us believe he and Tom King set up an exclusive partnership, are not to be implicitly believed. Turpin and the many of his kind, with whom he associated from time to time, no doubt, worked together or apart, or in alliance with others, just as changing circumstances from week to week dictated.
TOM KING.
(From Skelt's Drama.)
Tom King is usually said to have been killed under dramatic circumstances in the yard of the "Red Lion" inn, at the corner of the Whitechapel Road and Leman Street; but although we read much of him in the picturesque romances of the highway, it is by no means easy to trace Tom's movements, and he remains, whatever brave figure he may be in fiction, a very shadowy figure as seen in recorded facts. He, it appears, was one of three brothers. The other two were named Matthew and Robert, and it was really Matthew King who was mortally wounded in the yard of the "Red Lion" in 1737, in the affray with the Bow Street runners. The newspapers of the time record how, a week later, he died of his wounds in the New Prison, Clerkenwell, on May 24th.
The affair was the outcome of Turpin having stolen a fine horse of considerable celebrity at that time, a racehorse named "White Stockings," belonging to a Mr. Major, who, riding it, was overtaken one evening by Turpin, Tom King, and a new ally of theirs, named Potter, near the "Green Man," Epping. Turpin made him dismount and exchange horses, and took away his riding-whip; and then the three confederates went their way to London.
Mr. Major immediately made his loss known at the "Green Man," to Mr. Bayes, the landlord, who at once said: "I daresay Turpin has done it, or one of that crew," and then advised him the best thing to do would be to get a number of handbills immediately printed, describing the horse, and offering a reward. It was characteristic of the thoroughpaced rascality of Turpin, that the very horse he had compelled Mr. Major to change with him was stolen. It was identified as one that had been missing from Plaistow marshes. And the saddle had been stolen too, and was afterwards claimed.